All the books you should care about this Autumn
Featuring Chris Kraus, Derek Owusu, Heather Parry, Fatin Abbas and more.
We may be getting close to the end of the year, but that doesn’t mean all the best books have already come out. Autumn is the biggest season in the publishing calendar, and there are plenty of great titles still to come – from anticipated debuts to new novels from celebrated writers, from noirish thrillers to meditations on the shape of trauma.
Read on to see what’s still in store in 2025.
The Four Spent the Day Together by Chris Kraus
Scribe UK, Hardback, 9th October
A story in three linked parts, The Four Spent the Day Together follows three generations of Americans connected to one unexplained crime. In northern Minnesota, three teenagers shoot and kill an older acquaintance with no apparent motive. At the time of the murder, Catt Greene is living with her husband in their summer house nearby. With her life in turmoil, Catt finds herself drawn to the murder case. She combs obsessively through the teenagers lives, and in doing so is borne back into the idiosyncratic lives of her own parents.
From the author of I Love Dick, The Four Spent the Day Together is a witty, probing journey into fractured America.
View The Four Spent the Day Together on Bookshop.org
Ghost Season by Fatin Abbas
Jacaranda Books, Hardback, Out now
When a burnt corpse appears near an NGO compound in a remote border town between northern and southern Sudan, five strangers are in for trouble.
William, a South Sudanese translator, draws a connection between the corpse and the sudden disappearance of the woman he loves – Layla, a nomadic cook. Meanwhile, white aid worker Alex finds his best laid plans falling apart, and Sudanese American filmmaker Dena struggles to connect with a homeland she doesn’t really know. And in between there is twelve-year-old Mustafa, destined to become the catalyst for catastrophe.
Ghost Season is the debut novel from Fatin Abbas, a Miles Morland Foundation Writing Scholar, Bernard Cohen Short Story Prize and Miriam Weinberg Richter Award-winner, and a writing teacher at MIT.
View Ghost Season on Bookshop.org
Big Kiss, Bye-Bye by Claire-Louise Bennett
Fitzcarraldo Editions, Paperback, 9th October
With her life in the city overturned and uprooted, a woman finds herself in limbo in the countryside. She drifts between memories of those she’s loved and wanted, lost and rejected – especially memories of Xavier, her most recent love, who cannot accept that the woman no longer desires him. Throughout, the woman takes stock of what her loves have left behind, and tries to divine the essence of intimacy.
From acclaimed author Claire-Louise Bennett, Big Kiss, Bye-Bye explores the mystery of how people step into and out of our lives.
View Big Kiss, Bye-Bye on Bookshop.org
The Silver Book by Olivia Laing
Hamish Hamilton, Hardback
In September 1974, a young British artist runs away to Venice and is swept into the world of Italian film designer Danilo Donati. Delighted to have a young and beautiful apprentice fall into his lap, Donati sweeps Nicholas away to the sets of Casanova and Salò. But Nicholas has a secret, and soon he will unintentionally set into motion a tragedy he does not intend.
Bestselling author Olivia Laing’s second novel, The Silver Book is at once a queer love story and a noirish thriller.
View The Silver Book on Bookshop.org
Borderline Fiction by Derek Owusu
Canongate, Hardback, 6th November
At nineteen, Marcus is ready to re-evaluate his life of casual encounters and drug use – for the right woman. At twenty-five, history is repeating itself.
Told across two timelines, Borderline Fiction is a close-up examination of what it means to be a young Black man today from award-winning Derek Owusu. Intense, vulnerable, funny and poetic, Borderline Fiction offers a glimpse into the inner world of a young man searching for an authentic way to love and be loved.
View Borderline Fiction on Bookshop.org
The Leather Boys by Gillian Freeman
Dead Ink, Paperback, 20th November
Working class teenagers Dick and Reggie come together through their involvement in a gang and their love of leather and motorcycles. When Reggie decides to leave his loveless marriage and move in with Dick, they soon discover that their connection goes beyond the bounds of ordinary friendship. They begin to make plans for the future, but could find themselves heading for tragedy instead of happily ever after.
The first novel to portray a love story between working class young men, Gillian Freeman’s The Leather Boys is being re-released as part of Dead Ink’s Outsider Classics series, restoring lost groundbreaking works to the cult status they deserve.
View The Leather Boys on Bookshop.org
Dog Days by Emila LaBarge
Peninsula Press, Paperback, 16th October
A blend of memoir, essay and cultural criticism, Dog Days springs from an account of how Emily LaBarge and her family were held hostage during the Christmas holidays of 2009. From there the book turns outwards, asking why and how we tell the stories we do, and how it might be possible to tell the ‘good story’ and its aftermath on its own terms.
The first book from critic and essayist Emily LaBarge, Dog Days unsettles time and narrative, art and imagination, to communicate trauma and ideas of the self.